


A Little Bit of Everything

by orphan_account



Category: Emergency!
Genre: M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-07
Updated: 2011-06-07
Packaged: 2017-10-20 05:18:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/209161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Johnny describes his relationship with Roy in a way that only Johnny can. But what's serious enough to prompt him to reveal the truth? And who does he reveal it to? SLASH</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Bit of Everything

**Author's Note:**

> Not super graphic or dark, but has some potentially weird parts. You can handle it, I know you can.

_If you feel up to it, I'd like to hear your side of this as well before I decide what to do about him._

 _Do you need a few minutes?_

 _Don't be scared. Just start at the beginning._

It was _not_ what you think it was. I know what you saw, and I know what it might've looked like, but you're wrong if you believe that was really what was happening. Would I lie about that? Do I _look_ scared? I don't _feel_ scared… I feel stupid. I am stupid.

I always get myself into these things.

I don't know why.

It's just the kind of idiot I am.

But I hope you'll let me explain it to you so you'll believe me when I say that our relationship isn't like that. And yes, it is a relationship. It has been for a long time. At this point, I'm not afraid to admit that. It started way back in the day, and I mean _way_ back. A couple of years ago, before Wedsworth-Townsend. Yeah, that far back. It was when I'd just started at 51 and everyone was still getting used to me. It started this one day, when I'd been brushing my teeth and Roy had been taking a shower. I love that, by the way, being in a bathroom while it's all steamy and misty, even if it's just the station latrine. It's a nice feeling. It's almost as nice as the feeling I get when I look at Roy now and think about that first day we figured out what we thought of each other.

I know this isn't what you want to hear, but you said to start at the beginning. He stepped out of the shower and stood next to me at the sinks and started making like he was gonna shave. And I started making like I was gonna watch. He noticed me staring at him pretty quick. He had a towel tied around his waist, but his whole dang chest and belly were stickin' out. And I mean, come on. I _had_ to look. And that's when it began.

"Hey Gage," he said while he was slathering shaving cream all over his face. "Take a picture, it'll last longer."

I guess I hadn't realized how obvious I was being, but it occurred to me about then that I'd stopped mid-brush, and that the toothpaste had seeped past the toothbrush and over my hand, and was running down my wrist and dripping off my elbow.

"Sorry," I said, washing the toothpaste off of my arm, "It's just kinda funny."

" _What's_ kinda funny?" he asked, looking at me suspiciously and then turning his gaze on his own reflection. I guess that's exactly what I'd do, too, if I was almost naked and someone told me after looking all over my body that something about it was funny.

"You haven't noticed?" I said, trying hard not to laugh. "White men are so _hairy_."

It's true, you know. White women, too. The whiter they are, the more hair they've got. Have you ever looked at one of those super pale blondes, like the Aryan type with sky-blue eyes, outside on a sunny day? They have hair _all over_ their faces, like on their cheeks and their foreheads. It's really light, fine hair and it's hard to see unless it's really sunny, but I bet you a million bucks that if blonde women knew how stinkin' hairy their faces really are, they'd shave once a day. I don't envy whites when it comes to that. Shaving must take up so much time every morning. Although I admit it would be nice to be able to grow better sideburns. Not crazy muttonchops like Brackett—I'd be content with normal ones like Roy has.

Roy, that's who you asked me about. Well, after I said what I did, he looked at me, then at his reflection, then back at me.

Finally, he said, "You're not white?"

You'd be surprised how often I get that question. Yeah, okay, so I'm not full-blooded, and I'm aware that I "pass" more often than not. But just because a lot of folks _think_ I'm white, doesn't mean it's the white half of me that makes it onto government paperwork. I don't mind being asked about it, you know. In fact, I admit that I think it's funny sometimes the way white people struggle to ask the second question.

Which is: "So… what are you?"

Sometimes they ask it a little differently, but that was Roy's approach, and it was one I get a lot, so I had an answer ready.

I said, "What are _you_ , man?"

And they always react the same way, you know that? They always get kinda embarrassed because they think they offended me by asking. But they don't offend me, it's just kinda satisfying to watch 'em squirm. I don't know why it bothers people so much to see a man and not be able to figure out what his parents look like. But that's just the way it is. I knew a lot of guys back on the rez who never came to terms with that, but I told them time and again, that honkies ain't judging us, honkies is _nervous_.

But Roy got over it quick. He laughed and said, "I think it's pretty obvious that _I'm_ white. Your turn."

It kinda threw me off at first. But then I said, "I'll give you a hint, DeSoto—you start calling yourself the Lone Ranger because I'm your partner, and I'll lodge a tomahawk so deep in your skull that Brackett and Early will never be able to yank it out."

"Oh! You're an Indian," he said, smiling.

You know, I've heard it a million times— _Oh, you're an Indian. Oh_. But it's never been followed with a smile as cute as Roy's. He gets these little dimples under his cheeks. Wow… he's adorable, you know that? But what really stood out to me at that particular moment was that I knew for sure that I really liked him as a person. Some white people just don't know when to stop, and they start saying things like, Am I mad at the whites for what they did to my people, and Do I think Indians had it worse than Negroes (and it's always _had_ , not _have_ , because they think Civil Rights changed everything), and my personal favorite, You know, I have some Cherokee blood in me, too, on my grandmother's side…

But Roy doesn't play that sort of game. Instead, he just smiled all dimply at me and said, "That's right, I saw it on your records when you started the paramedic program. I guess I forgot about it."

It was such a comfort, and it still is, to know that he doesn't think of me as Johnny Gage the Station Injun, that he'll never see a Western on TV and think, "Oh, I can't let Johnny catch me watching this, he'll think I don't care about the Indians." It's really satisfying to know that he doesn't think of teepees and smallpox when he sees my face. When he sees me, he sees his partner, a fellow fireman-paramedic, who _also_ happens to be his favorite Indian in Los Angeles County.

And see, this is what I mean about how I get myself into these things. What started as me letting my eyes linger too long on my partner's almost naked body turned into me getting all gushy over the guy right then and there because he's _not_ a racist jerk. What should've been nothing more than a weird exchange between two guys turned into what you just saw, and I should've known better two years ago.

I just can't help myself. I'm a lot of things, and dumb is definitely one of them.

"You know what else I've noticed about white guys?" I said to Roy, trying to test the waters on that day so long ago. "They're cute when they blush."

He laughed sort of weird like people do if I say something openly like that, and told me, "You know somethin', Gage? You're crazy. And I think I could really get used to working with you." And he blushed when he said it. Let me tell you, he doesn't just get little rosy circles on his cheeks—his whole body gets pink. Trust me, his _whole_ body.

"Glad you think so," I said, spitting and rinsing off my toothbrush, thinking about all the things I'd like to do to see him blush again.

"Hey, what's this?" he said, putting his hand on my shoulder and turning me to face him. "Would you believe it, Gage? Indians are cute when they blush, too."

* * *

Anyway, I guess you're probably getting a little irritated by now, thinking, "Hold on, is he trying to tell me that he and Roy have little _crushes_ on each other? Or is he just spouting this tirade about hairy white people because he's nervous?" Well, I'm sorry. I am nervous. Why wouldn't I be? Besides, I'm not the greatest at getting to the point, and that's why I usually try to make Roy to fill out all the logs, ha! But I'll tell you this much right now—if you wanna know if Roy and I have been sneaking off to hold hands while the engine company isn't looking for a long time, just hold your horses because I'm getting there.

Okay, so this whole thing started because I can't keep my dumb mouth shut and because Roy doesn't have that pathetic "white guilt" thing like Chet Kelly does. And don't tell me he doesn't. White people think they're good at hiding these things, but they're really transparent sometimes. Chet's like that. I'll admit, he's not actively bigoted, and the truth is that he's a hell of a fireman, and if you tell him I said that, I'll wring your neck. But every time I start talking about the rez or something like that, you can see that guilty look, clear as day on his fat little face.

I can't understand why some white people feel like that. I mean, just because your great-great-great grandparents were born in Europe doesn't mean you have to apologize to me for Columbus and Cortez and Andrew Jackson. Trust me, if you gave me a $20 bill, I wouldn't throw it back at you because of whose face is printed on it. Even if you're short and fat and you have a creepy mustache that makes children run away screaming "Stranger danger!" chances are, it's not your whiteness that makes me hate you.

You might think I'm putting an awful lot of thought into this, and I know it doesn't have anything to do with what you asked about, but I'll let you in on a little secret right quick before I get back to my story. Like a lot of things, my heritage is something I hardly ever stop thinking about, even if it's something I hardly ever mention out loud. White people think that we only consider our ethnicity when it's convenient for us, but think of it like this: Do you ever forget that you're a man? Do you ever look in the mirror and go, "Oh, yes, my hair is _brown_ , for a moment there I thought it was blonde?"

Well, I've been off the rez for a long time, and I try not to bring it up a lot because I don't want to upset guys like Chet. But let me tell you what— I forget that I'm an Indian about as often as you forget to breathe. We all see things from our own perspective, and mine just happens to be this one. A little bit of everything I experience always has to go through a little filter, and it's the kind of filter that asks things like, "Did he tell me to repeat that because the biocom's breaking up, or because I'm slipping back into the rez accent? Did she look at me like that because she's surprised a paramedic could wind up with so many bruises in one run, or because the contusions are easier to detect on my white partner? And did they buy me those loafers for my birthday because they look kinda like moccasins? Seriously, that's the most intense fringe I've ever seen. Might as well have some dang beads or something."

It's not a matter of insecurity; it's just that a lot of things I do in the company of white people, I always wonder if anyone notices I'm doing it differently. Ask Marco about it sometime. Ask Dr. Morton. We know you always try to see us as firemen, paramedics and doctors, but you can never look past that one thing we don't have in common. Even Roy slips up sometimes. He was going on and on once, pillow-talk sort of thing, about how he wished my hair was so long he could braid it. I know he was just letting me know again how much he likes my hair—he likes it a lot, you know— but I bet what he was really thinking was that he wanted to stick some feathers in it, too. White people, even the ones who care about us and don't want to offend us, just can't ever stop seeing us as red, brown or black. But guys like me, Marco and Dr. Morton, we forgive white people for that, because frankly, neither can we.

By the way, I suppose I should tell you that I returned the loafers you guys gave me. It wasn't because I didn't like them, though. It was just that they, uh… pinched in the toe. Yeah, that's it.

Anyway, I guess what I'm _really_ trying to say is, I like white people despite their faults. White guys. One white guy in particular, and what I like about him is that he has gapped teeth and he gets a double chin when he turns his face down. Yeah, I like that about him. So sue me. He also has ultimately-white pale skin that burns instead of tanning when he goes to the beach, and soft red hair that looks so purdy on him even though he always has a dorky haircut and you can see it's starting to get thin on top. All these things about him are so… charming. He has so many things that I love, but my favorite is those seriously beautiful blue eyes of his. I could spend days getting lost in them.

Of course, he also has a wife and two kids…

Look, I'm a good guy. I don't go after the married ones. The fact that I went after Roy even though I knew what a great family thing he had going on ought to show you how much he means to me. Otherwise, being a homewrecker just ain't my bag. Who am I to throw myself in the middle of someone's marriage just because I think a guy is cute? Or a gal, I guess, but the difference between married men and married women is that most women are too smart to risk their marriage on a dumb skinny Indian, even if he _is_ a handsome fireman-paramedic.

And you know, I have to admit, I thought Roy was smarter than that, too. Well, he is, but I guess he didn't consider what he was getting himself into. Letting himself flirting back and forth with me when we were first partnered together probably isn't really what you could call "cheating." And when I started leaving my hand on his shoulder longer than the other guys, when I started leaning closer to him when he talked to me, things like that, he didn't complain. I figured he picked up pretty quick that I'm like that with a lot of people, even if I'm not interested. Except for Chet Kelly, maybe, I don't have a lot of scruples about letting myself get cozy with people.

Actually, that's not really true. I'm not _completely_ stupid, I know when to stop. There's a lot of people I like perfectly well but I'm not interested in, and a lot of people who I find absolutely attractive but don't flirt with for one reason or another. Take Dixie McCall, for example. Maybe she's a little older than most gals I'd go for, and I know she's definitely not into firemen, but I don't care. Dixie is hot, even if she does have white-people hair all over her face. That little white uniform of hers, well, you've seen it, right? Don't tell me it's not tight in _all_ the right places.

But it's more than that. She's also an amazing woman and she makes a fantastic nurse because she's so confident. And I'll tell you, that confidence has really meant a lot to me sometimes, like when we've had a bad run and a little kid is dead because we couldn't get there in time. There've been an awful lot of times when the only thing that gets me back out there, trying to save some other lives is Dixie looking me in the eyes and saying, "They _need_ you, Johnny." She's been there for me a lot of times. If you need to talk to someone else about this, give her a call. She knows about me and Roy. I told her. And see, that's why I never flirt with her, because I love her a lot more like family.

Well, that and I don't need Dr. Brackett breathing down my neck for puttin' the moves on his gal. I know, I know, she's _not_ his gal—I remember when she dumped him for good and started going with some city cop, some chubby white guy, I think his name was Malone or Malloy or something—but you can still tell that Brackett has the hots for Dix.

Now Brackett, he's another one. Yeah, him too. Hey, it's my right to look… oh, okay, you got me. I'm just trying to gross you out now. Brackett's a fine doctor, and he sure does wear some sexy clothes, but I'd rather see those paisley shirts and tight, tight pants _on_ him instead of _off_ of him, if you know what I mean. I swear it's not because I have a problem with him or anything, I'm just not into that kind of guy. I was pretty sore at him for a long time, you know, but Roy finally talked me out of it. That's the thing about Roy, and if this works out I think you'll find that it's a pretty nice quality of his. I've seen him pretty darn mad, but he's not the kind of guy to hold a grudge, not even against a particular doctor who once put up a big fuss about teaching firemen to administer emergency treatment.

Roy doesn't even hold grudges against dumb skinny Indians who flirt with him to the point where he can't take it anymore. Maybe he was mad, but it wasn't a grudge sort of thing when he turned to me in the squad one day on the way back from a supply run about a year after we'd been partnered together and said, "Look, Johnny, I'm flattered, really. It makes me feel good to know that you like me so much. But, even if I wasn't married…"

See, _here's_ where the story progresses, and here's what I mean about how I get myself into these things even when I should know better. I remember that day, when Roy finally acknowledged exactly what had been going on between us for the past year. I'd been going too fast around him and now he was slamming on the breaks. I should've gotten a clue and stopped before it got to the point where _I_ couldn't take it anymore.

"Even if you weren't married, we're partners and it would be too distracting," I said to him. I didn't think much of it, because he'd been so sweet to me and he seemed to like me so much that I was sure he could get past that we-can't-we're-partners thing.

He said, "It's not just that. I don't know about you, but…" he sighed and looked at me, and then he said, "Johnny, I'm _not_ gay. I mean, I'm married. I have a family."

I do his voice pretty good, don't you think? No? Well, you oughta hear me do Chet's. His is easy, though. Just make everything you say sound really arrogant and you've got it.

Anyway, that's what Roy said to me that day in the squad. I admit I didn't expect it. I figured he was gonna tell me to stop flirting with everybody and take my job a little more seriously, but out of nowhere came this whole, "Maybe you're a screamin' queen, but me, oh no Johnny, I'm a real man." Okay, that's not what he said, and I don't want you to think he'd ever say anything like that to anybody. The point is, it would've hurt a lot less if that _was_ what he said to me. It killed me to think that after just a little teensy tiny bit of harmless flirting, he felt the need to lay it all on the line there and make sure I knew that everything I felt for him was absolutely unrequited. I didn't think I was so obvious. But I guess he'd seen me smiling at enough of the Rampart nurses to know that it wasn't a just teensy tiny bit of harmless flirting, and that I actually came onto him a lot more than anybody else. I'm sure he could tell that there was a hell of a lot more to it than anything I'd say to a pretty nurse. And since he'd figured out how I felt, he was making sure I knew that he didn't feel that way back.

"You can be married and be gay," I told him, because I didn't want him to know how upset I really was all of a sudden.

"Johnny," he sighed like he was getting frustrated. "You can't convince me to be something I'm not. I like you a lot, but as a friend, okay? You're my _best_ friend, but that's all. I'm sorry."

I couldn't say anything. Honestly, and I'm not ashamed to tell you, it was the first time in my life that the words _I'm sorry_ had ever hurt me so much to hear. It was the first time in a whole year that Roy said something to me and it made me feel stupid and ashamed. And I guess it was the first time I knew that there was no way I could be happy unless I was with him, because it was the first time I was absolutely sure that I love him.

I'll say it again in case you didn't hear it the first time: I love Roy DeSoto. Maybe if you were a shrink you'd tell me that it's not really love, it's more like a really intense sense of trust and companionship because we've been in so many dangerous situations together, but you're not a shrink and I wouldn't care if you were. I know what I feel, okay? I was in plenty of dangerous situations with Tony Freeman, but you never saw me hoping he'd cheat on _his_ wife, did you? Jeez, I've even been in dangerous situations with Chet, and you know how I feel about that guy.

What I'm trying to say is… well, I don't need to tell you what being in love is like, do I? It's not one of those things I told you about, that I'd experience differently because I'm an Indian. Trust me, when you love a guy and he tells you're his best friend and that's all, it feels like running into a four-alarm factory fire without your mask, your helmet or your turnout no matter what color your skin is.

When I never responded to him, he asked me, "You're not mad, are ya, Junior?"

"Not at all," I said. "Of course, you should know that this doesn't mean I don't still think you're a handsome, thoughtful and all-around attractive guy. And I like you a lot more than a friend, Roy. In fact, you're my favorite person in the whole world and nothing you tell me is going to make me stop feeling that way about you."

Roy sighed and shook his head, but he made himself smile at me, probably unaware that he was making it that much worse. "You're wasting your time, Johnny," he said, laughing. "Why don't you go after Chet or something? I bet he'd like the attention."

I suppose I should backtrack a little bit because you're probably confused about whether I'm gay or whether I just have a thing for dimply-faced white guys who tell me they have no feelings for me whatsoever. The answer is that I don't really know. I mean, I had someone tell me once that I'm "bisexual" or something like that, but I don't think it's something that anyone can really define. It's not like race, you know. Heck, even race is hazy—look at me, I'm not just one thing, and neither are a lot of people—so why should the way you feel about other people be something you can slap a title on and call it a day? If you're one thing or another it makes it easier to keep you separate and unequal. I guess in that way, it _is_ like race. As long as people insist on being able to know exactly what you are because they're uncomfortable otherwise, then it's gonna be that much harder for us to get along with each other.

But hey, it's 1974. The times they are a-changin', right? So the next time someone asks me, "What _are_ you, Johnny? White or Indian? Straight or gay?" I'll say, "Man, I'm a little bit of everything."

Yessir, I like the times we're living in. Roy asked me once if I'd like to go back to the way we used to live, like before 1492 if you know what I mean, and you know what? I wouldn't. I love the present. I love toilets that flush, and cars and TVs. Even more, I love hospitals and medicine and vaccines, and I love being able to help people and save lives that I wouldn't have been allowed to a few years ago. I even appreciate, maybe not love, that it's not such a big deal to talk about being gay or not with my squad partner. It's not exactly something I'd put on a billboard and I understand that it's probably against department policy, but Roy swears that when he was younger, it wasn't something people _ever_ talked about. Back then, it just wasn't okay to acknowledge that some people are different about that stuff. And he's not even that much older than me. Heck, I remember a few years ago when people first started talking about this sort of thing. And now, you see people on the news picketing in front of colleges and research facilities because some doctors still think you're crazy if you're gay. Not the good doctors, though. I remember once we were doing something at Rampart and I saw Brackett and Early looking at one of their medical journals and talking about it.

Brackett said, "It's an antiquated, intolerant ideology that only hinders proper psychiatric diagnosis! When we're treating patients for having completely natural human emotions, there's something wrong with the system. We might as well be using _leeches_."

"I'm not disagreeing with you, Kel," Early said. He's way more calm about these sorts of things. He shook his head and said, "They're working on it. Every day they're getting closer to changing it. They just have to keep everybody happy."

"Politics shouldn't dictate medical practice!" Brackett said. "If some politicians had their way, there still wouldn't be a paramedic program."

"If some _doctors_ had their way, you mean," Early told him, making him roll his eyes. "Progress comes slow, Kel. In the meantime, we can't let our feelings affect our work."

You know, Early was right when he said that, but not just about doctors. There was this one time Roy and I had a run in the middle of the night, in some club that was, well, the kind of club that everyone knows about but you don't go into unless you're a specific kind of person. You know what I mean? Do you remember that call? Possible drug overdose, time out 2:07? No? Well, it was about a year ago. When we got in there it was pretty obvious the guy had been dropping pills. We found him surrounded by all the people who'd been dancing, and he was all curled up on the floor with puke comin' out his mouth and nose. I remember his pupils were about the size of dinner plates and his pulse was through the roof.

Anyway, the point of me telling you this isn't to go on about treating the guy, it's to talk about feelings getting in the way of work. Everyone in the club was panicking, but nobody had bothered to turn down the music. Roy and I had to shout just to hear each other. It was a weird kind of music. They only play it in clubs like that one. It's kinda like funk, but it has violins and stuff, and a really heavy beat. It's probably really good to dance to, but I don't go into clubs like that because I prefer country music, and because I don't want to be around guys on drugs, even if they do put out.

See, _now_ you know what kind of club I'm talking about.

So Roy and I were shouting at each other over this music, and pretty soon Roy got fed up and gestured for one of the guys who called us to come over to him so he could ask him to turn the dang music down. Roy had to get real close to this guy and cup his hands around his ear so he could be heard, but the guy got the message and pretty soon the music was off. I guess Roy didn't know what kind of club we were in, but he figured it out pretty quick. We had the IVs administered and we were keeping an eye on the patient's vitals while we waited for the ambulance, and I noticed Roy looking over my shoulder and going blush-crazy. So I turned around and I figured out that Roy was looking at the guy he'd talked to, and the guy was _really_ looking at him. Well, more than looking, you know? I don't think Roy had ever been checked out by a guy before, at least not like that. Maybe he assumed that all queers are gentle, and flirt politely like me, but the truth is that some guys are just plain aggressive, and this guy was definitely one of 'em. And let me tell you what, you ought to see the _girls_.

So Roy was blushing as if he'd walked into the place naked, and he looked at me right there and said, "Johnny?"

And what did I do? Well, this was only a couple days after our chat in the squad, so I was still pretty upset about the whole thing. And I made a mistake. I hadn't stopped thinking about it for one moment, and for the first and only time in my whole life I let it get to me right there in the middle of the run.

I said, "It's a good thing you told me what you did, because I'd hate to have to fight that guy for looking at you like that." I still feel stupid for thinking about how I felt about Roy when I should've been watching the patient. I've never done it ever since, I promise you that much.

By that point, Roy was such a bright shade of red that he had that ruddy look where his eyebrows stand out on his face because they're paler than his skin. It's the pale blondes who usually look like that. You know, the ones with the hairy faces. Well, like I said, Roy doesn't hold grudges, and that's a good thing, because you wanna know what happened next?

Roy glared at me and then looked back at our patient, and he said, "Just check his pupils again, _Gage_."

* * *

I swear, this will come to an end eventually. By now I'm sure you just want me to get to the part where Roy and I run off to Vegas to get married and the engine crew is mad at us because they really wanted to be part of the wedding, even though Chet and Marco couldn't agree on who was gonna be the flower girl and who was gonna be the ring bearer so it's better that we eloped anyway.

Well, it didn't happen like that, you know. And I guess that wasn't really what you asked me about, but it's just that when I think of everything that happened between me and Roy, I think about a lot of other stuff, too. The thing about life is that you can't ever keep the parts completely separate from each other. Like work and personal stuff—we're not supposed to let them affect each other, but in reality, they always have something to do with each other, even just a little.

He's never acted out on it like I did that one time, but I imagine Roy has that problem more than me. It's probably because he has so much more going on in his personal life than I do. Sure, I'll have a sweet little nurse to spend my days off with sometimes, but I mean serious stuff like house payments and school plays. This is another thing I never, ever forget: there was a while there when I was really feeling bad, really hurting way deep down inside because I couldn't be with Roy. Every day I had to sit shotgun in the squad and work right beside him knowing that I loved him and that he liked me as a friend. But I know now that for every night I laid awake in my bed at the station, looking at him sleeping one bed away and wishing things were different, he must've spent twice as many doing the exact same thing.

But I could be wrong. "No one can really understand the way the other loves." Robert Wagner said that in this crazy old horror movie we watched the other night between runs. _A Kiss Before Dying_. Did you watch it? I can't remember. Chet liked the part where he pushed the blonde dame off the top of a building. Man, he was laughing way more than any normal person should. I guess it _was_ a pretty cheesy scene, but sometimes I really wonder about that guy.

Actually, would you believe that it was Chet who finally got the ball rolling with me and Roy? Well, not directly, but if you really want to blame someone for this, I think you should blame Chet. Alright, it's _my_ fault because I always get myself into these things even when I should know better. But in the meantime, we gotta do something about Chet. If he's gonna laugh at Robert Wagner pushing pretty girls off of buildings, then he needs some kind of comeuppance, right? I'm thinking a water bomb in _his_ locker…

Anyway, it was that party Chet had on the Memorial Day weekend about a year ago that got it started again. It's not often our days off fall on a real holiday, and he was so darn excited about it that he threw an eating contest in his backyard and a party broke out. That's the way Chet entertains. I'll give the guy credit, he can grill up a mighty fine steak, but we were lucky C-shift didn't have to come and drag us down to Rampart to have our stomachs pumped.

Do you remember that party? I think you might've been there, but to be honest, I wasn't paying a lot of attention to anyone that day, not even my date. Sue Ellen was her name, and she was one of those Rampart nurses. She was pretty and all—not built like Dix, though— but it didn't last very long between us. I took her to the party to have someone to look good with, but I know she saw me make a beeline for Roy as soon as I got there. Pathetic, right? Even when my heart was breaking for him, I still wanted to be around him.

He was sitting by himself in one of those cheap aluminum chairs Chet has all over the place, with a beer on his knee and a weird look on his face.

I dragged a chair up beside him and said, "Hey, where's Joanne? I want her to meet Sue."

"Oh, she couldn't make it," Roy said, sounding kinda distant. He drained his beer and said, "You wanna bring me another one, pally?"

And that's the way it went all afternoon. While the rest of us were eating potato salad and burgers and corn-on-the-cob and hotdogs and this excellent jicama thing that Marco had brought, Roy was making sure nobody else had a shot at the beer. I'm not sure if you've ever seen Roy drunk, but it's not nearly as charming as you might imagine. As a matter of fact, it really doesn't suit him. I don't think being completely shitfaced suits anybody, and I guess that means I'm a square.

But I'll tell you another short story before I make my point: one of my best friends growing up had a dad who drank. Maybe I don't need to tell you this, but there were a lot of folks on the rez who drank. Once I was over at my friend's place and I'd gone into the kitchen for something, and I found all this bread thrown all over the counter with blue spots through the middle of them. My friend explained to me that this was what his dad had to do since his driver's license got taken away and he couldn't drive to the liquor store—he was pouring his old aftershave through the bread to filter the bitter chemicals out. It's an old sailors' trick. Real nifty, right? I don't care. When you're such a drunk that you pour aftershave over _bread_ because you can't function without alcohol in your blood… well, I guess your brain is so screwed up that you're too far gone to be ashamed of yourself.

Roy's not a drunk, but he was drinky on that particular afternoon, and by the time the sun went down, Chet came up to me and he said, "Hey Johnny, you wanna come look at this leaky faucet I have?"

The first thing that crossed my mind was that this was the beginning of some creepy prank he wanted to play on me, so I was pretty nervous. But when he had me away from the crowd, his whole mood changed. Chet's not very serious about anything when he's not on a run, so it kinda got my attention when he said, "Roy's in no shape to drive home."

"No," I agreed.

"Look, I wouldn't ask you if you weren't his best friend. I mean, I don't want him to be embarrassed later on," he said, "But the last thing I need on my conscious is for Roy to get into some crazy traffic accident after getting drunk at my party."

"Do you want me to drive him home?" I asked.

"Would you?"

"Yeah," I told him. "As long as you don't mind his car parked in front of your place overnight."

"Not as much as I'd mind it wrapped around a tree or underneath an 18-wheeler," he said.

Chet's an okay guy.

Well, he can be.

Sometimes.

So I said goodbye to everyone and Sue Ellen helped me drag Roy out to the truck, and we squeezed him between us in the cab and took off. I tried to apologize to Sue for making her leave early, but she told me she wasn't having very much fun anyway.

"Sue Ellen. Pretty Sue Ellen," Roy slurred as we drove away from Chet's. "You're a lucky gal. I mean, anyone who gets with Johnny is lucky."

"Mmhmm," Sue replied, trying to subtly roll her eyes.

"Johnny's a good guy, Sue," he said. "He'll treat you right. I mean, he'll _really_ be there for you when you need him, even when the goin' gets tough. You know? He'll _be_ there for you."

Sue said, "That's nice."

"That's nice," Roy repeated, laughing and leaning heavily on her with an arm over her shoulder. "You're a doll. A real peach." He kissed her on the cheek and then he pulled himself off of her and turned to me. "You're a doll, too, Johnny," he said, and then he kissed me on the cheek, too. It was a real sloppy drunk kiss, so that he left a big wet mark on my face. I could see Sue wiping her cheek with her handkerchief.

Roy was silent for a few minutes and I thought he might've blacked out, but then he said, "You must be pretty special, Sue. Johnny doesn't go with brunettes all that often. He prefers _redheads_. Tall redheads. You know what I mean?"

"John, why don't you just drop me off now?" she said.

"You just wanna go home?" I asked her, although I wasn't thinking about much except that my face still felt like it was on fire where Roy had kissed me.

"Yes," she said.

So I did what she asked, and I stopped off at her place before heading to Roy's. She wasn't very thrilled with me, I think, but I was a lot more concerned about the fact that I was now alone with a very drunk and very friendly Roy.

"Nice kid," Roy muttered as we drove off. He smiled at me, flashing that gap-toothed grin I was hurting so badly for back then. "Nurses. Ha! Johnny, you 'member way, way, way back when you were at 10 and you came to my office and I told you about the, uh," he paused to find the word, "well, the program?"

"Yeah, Roy, I remember that," I said, making myself watch the road instead of him

"You didn't want to do it," he said. "You thought it was a big ol' waste of time."

"I did," I told him.

"Well, it's a good thing you changed your mind," he said. "Cuz… I don't know where I'd be without you."

"Thanks, Roy," I said.

"You know, when you walked into my office, I said to myself," he coughed and swayed as I turned a corner, "I said, 'Roy, baby, what are you gonna do if this kid quits the program?' And you know something? I don't know. What I would've done, you know? I mean, I liked you _so_ much."

"Yeah."

"God, I like you, Johnny. I like every part of you. I like your hair, and your face, and your eyes, and your hair," he sighed and closed his eyes. "I mean, I know what I told you, Johnny. But the truth is... I _love_ your hair."

"Do you, uh, think I should grow it out some more?" I asked him, trying not to let myself dwell too much on what he was telling me. He was drunk, you know? Everybody says things like, "I can't live without you, man," when they're drunk. Right? And all he was talking about was my hair. Right?

"Oh, sure," he told me. "Who needs regulations when it comes to a guy as sexy as you?"

Finally, I parked the truck in his driveway. "Okay, Roy, time to go home."

"Are we here already?" he asked, looking out the window.

"Yeah. I'm gonna walk you to the door, okay?" I told him.

He looked at me and his smile faded, and then he said, "Can I crash at your place?"

"What for?" I asked.

"I don't want the kids to see me like this," he groaned and threw back his head. "I don't need Jo thinking I'm a bad father. I'm a good father, Johnny. I mean, I really try to be there whenever I can. I'm there for Jo when she needs me. I'm a _good_ husband, Johnny. I'd never do anything to hurt her."

"Okay, Roy," I said. "I'm gonna go in and let Joanne know where you are."

"Oh, don't bother," he said. "She's probably asleep already."

I didn't want to fight him, but you have to understand the position I was in. He'd told me that it was never gonna be anything but friendship between us, and I was still pretty down about the whole thing, you know? But I respect Roy and I never wanted to overstep my boundaries because I'd decided that I'd rather at least be his friend than be nothing. I was sure that he was get uncomfortable around me and not want to work with me anymore. And what about that thing I said to him in that nightclub a week or so earlier? I couldn't keep my mind off of him and I was scaring him away. So you see, this was really a dilemma for me. Roy was under-the-table drunk and insisting on going over to my place, where we'd be all alone with each other, and now he didn't even want Joanne to know about it?

"Well, I think she'll forgive me for waking her up," I said to him. I started to get out of the truck, when Roy reached out to grab my arm.

"They went up to the in-laws for the holiday," he said, softly. Suddenly, all of the drinky giddiness was gone.

"Why didn't you go with them?" I asked.

He said, "I told Jo I had to fill in for someone on C-shift."

Just when I was gonna ask him why he'd go and do something like that, I noticed that there was some kind of seriousness in Roy's eyes that I'd never seen outside of the Rampart waiting room.

I should've made him go home and let him sit in his empty house.

I knew better.

But I always get myself into these things. I don't know why. It's just the kind of idiot I am.

As I backed the truck out of the driveway, he leaned back in his seat and let out a big sigh.

He said, "You're a good guy, Johnny. A good, good, guy."

"I'm an idiot," I told him.

"You're a sexy idiot," he responded, and then he went back to smiling. Then he was touching my arm and my knee, looking at me, leaning toward me. And dang it, as bad as I was feeling about the whole thing, I was really digging all the attention. Pretty soon I was egging him on.

I said, "Tell me more about my hair."

"You should brush it more often," he said. "Makes it shiny. And shiny hair is healthy hair."

"And healthy hair is happy hair?" I asked him.

He laughed like it was the funniest thing he'd heard in a long time. You know, when he smiles and when he laughs, he gets these dimples… did I tell you that already? I think I did. But those dimpled cheeks of his, man, they're too much. Between his soft red hair and his smooth, white skin, I could eat him up like a hot piece of frybread. The honey is optional.

* * *

Well, eventually we made it to my place and I'm sure this is the part you've been waiting to hear about. What happened between me and Roy that night, right? I wonder if I should really be telling you this because I'm pretty sure Roy would be embarrassed if he knew. But I guess he's already in a pretty deep hole it's not gonna hurt him any more if I just tell you.

I helped him out of the truck and he stumbled all over the place, so I put his arm over my shoulder because I didn't feel like scraping his carcass off the stairs in the morning. It took a while, but I managed to drag him up to my apartment, and I even got him over the threshold without dropping him.

Just as I was closing the door, he turned to me and said, "Did I tell you, that I take back what I told you?"

"Okay," I said, trying to keep him upright while I searched for the light switch.

"Because, you know, I told you you're just my best friend…" and then his knees started to buckle so I grabbed him tight and held him around the waist.

"Let's get you set up on the couch," I told him, trying not to hear anything that he was saying.

"How about the bed?" he said, sounding terribly sleazy.

I couldn't make myself say anything else, so I dragged him to the couch and tried to lower him onto it with dropping him like so much dead weight. But he's a big guy—he's taller than me and twice as thick, and when that much weight is dragging you down, and it also happens to have its arms wrapped around your shoulders, well, you're going down with it.

I managed not to land right on top of him. I sorta fell beside him on the couch, and I twisted my leg around kinda funny, but at least I had him seated firmly so he wouldn't fall and knock his teeth out or something. For being so wasted, his grip was surprisingly strong and he held onto my shoulders so I couldn't stand up.

Of course, maybe it wasn't his grip. Maybe I was just particularly weak.

"Okay, you can let go of me now, Roy," I said to him. Part of me, most of me really, was content to just curl up in his lap and let him hold me all night. But the rest of me _knew_ I needed to leave him alone so he wouldn't wake up and hate me. I mean, I was sure he was going to be embarrassed enough anyway, and if he opened his eyes the next morning and found me snoring on his shoulder, there'd be no way he could ever forgive me.

Not that he seemed potentially regretful, if that makes any sense. He let his head roll about, and he smiled at me all dreamy-like and touched me on the tip of my nose. And then he said, "Johnny," and then stopped like he was thinking about how to say what was on his mind.

I took the opportunity to try an' get away. I said, "Alright, Roy, I think you should get some sleep now."

"Beauty rest?" he suggested.

"Sure, Roy," I said. "You get your beauty rest, okay?"

"Yeah, cuz I need it, right?" he said. "Look, you must think I'm so… I don't know, I must be real ugly right now. Cuz you haven't tried to do anything to me. Not once." He almost sounded irritated. But it was probably the beer talking.

"You're drunk," I told him.

He asked me, "Do you think I'm an ugly drunk, Johnny?"

I know Roy's not a drunk, but I'd rather be around him when he's sober. It's a good thing he doesn't drink very often. Just a beer or two at a party, and when that's the case he's not really drunk, he's just friendly. I still don't particularly like it, though, and the truth is that I myself only have a beer or something around other people because I hate being left out. The point is, that night something had gotten into Roy, and I couldn't really say what it was. I guess I should also be honest and say that as much as I hated to see him so drunk, there was nothing ugly about him.

I said, "You're fine, Roy."

"Yeah, I'm fine," he repeated. "Just _fine_. I'm just fine to you, Johnny, and you're fine to me."

I sighed, "Roy…" and I didn't know what else to say. Would it be worth it to tell him what he really meant to me, to spill my guts right then and there when he was probably too shitfaced to appreciate it? If I told him how much I loved him, would it even get through?

He held me by the shoulders and looked me in the eye. "Tell me… what you told me before," he said. "I wanna hear you say it again."

I knew what he was referring to. I remembered my exact words. When he'd told me to stop trying for him, I'd told him, " _You're my favorite person in the whole world_."

And I couldn't bring myself to say it. Just thinking about it made my heart break all over again. It took a strength I didn't know I had, but I shook my head and I said, "I don't know what you're talking about, Roy."

"Oh, come on, you know," he slurred. "I never told you how great it felt to hear it. I mean, it was like," he released one of my shoulders and put his hand on his chest, "Nobody ever told me anything like that before."

I said, "Well, I'm glad I made you happy."

" _Make_ ," he said. "You _make_ me happy, Johnny."

You remember what I told you, about how some white people ask me if I think Indians or Negroes _had_ it worse? And I pointed out the difference between _had_ and _have_? Well, there really is a big difference between those words, and it's not just that one means it happened in the past and one means it happens now. I think words in the present tense have more power and more depth. If it _happened_ , it's over, it's gone. But if it's _happening_ , you can see it and you can feel it in real time, and it means a lot more to you because it's something you're experiencing right now.

So when Roy told me that I _make_ him happy instead of _made_ him happy, I was so floored that I didn't even think to stop him when he pulled me closer, turned his head and kissed me.

Drunk kisses… they're not very good. They're sloppy and wet, and they stink like stale beer. Really. When you're that close to a drunk person you can smell the intoxication in their blood, and Roy was no different. The usual smell he has—sorta like a mix of shaving cream and butter, flavored by the heavy scent of smoke and adrenaline that none of us can ever truly wash away—was tainted by that sour odor of beer, reminding me that he didn't _really_ want to be with me, it was the alcohol making him do it.

But you know what? That didn't stop me.

 _At first._

I'd wanted to feel his lips against mine for so long that the sadness and the frustration in me seemed so far away all of a sudden. Because it's like I said, when something's happening to you in the present, you don't think about the past, and you definitely forget all about the future.

And I kissed him back, letting myself melt all over him and curl up in his lap just like I'd imagined. It was a frantic, uninhibited kiss, and although his tongue was tired and weak, it was still a kiss. I mean, dang it, I'd spent so many nights lying awake, dreaming of this very moment, and now it was finally happening. And it wasn't much longer until something else I'd spent plenty of time dreaming about started happening, too. The longer I kissed him, the closer I leaned into him, I could feel him getting hotter beneath me. As soon as I felt him push up against me, that was all it took to make me forget about how much I'd tried to resist him.

I wanted him. I _needed_ him, right then and there. I didn't care how it happened—in his hand, in his mouth, in his body—I needed to have him so bad I could barely think.

You know how it is when you get like that. Your brain stops working right and all your attention is on getting that one particular itch scratched, so to speak. And you know how focused I get on other things. So would you believe me if I told you that as worked up as I was right at that very instant, I actually managed to tear myself away from him?

It's true. I really did. Hey, I've told you enough already, would I lie to you about this part? I don't know how I did it, but somehow I got it through my head that if Roy would regret getting drunk at Chet's party, he certainly wouldn't be thrilled about _this_.

So I said, "Roy, I…" and the words were so difficult to find. I couldn't tell him what I was really thinking because it would be lost on him, so I said, "I need… to get something…"

And oh man you don't know how it killed me to crawl away from that couch and leave him there, but I did. You know what I think it was? It was the fact that I knew, even then, that my love for him was so much more important than my lust for him. I guess it sounds cheesy to say it like that, but that's how it was. If it meant giving up the one chance I had to sleep with him so that I could at least have him as a friend and a partner, I was willing to do that. It's kinda like the Dusty Springfield song. You know the one about, will you still love me tomorrow, or something like that? That's what I told myself it was like. I needed his trust and his respect forever, more than I needed his body that night.

God _dang_. I told you it wasn't easy. You know how it is. Don't you? When you get all riled up and then you have to tell your body, "Just kidding," and then you have to calm yourself down again. Well, it hurts. Physically. I mean, I guess I could've just snuck away to the bathroom and taken care of myself like I was 15 all over again, but as soon as I got there I took one look at my reflection and I hated myself too much to do that. I hated myself because I was so _stupid_. Roy was sitting out there on my couch, too drunk to care, and I was hiding away in the bathroom so he wouldn't be mad at me?

Idiot!

And I think you know already that I'm glad I did it, though. I don't need to tell you that, do I?

* * *

In life, you come to terms with a lot of things. For instance, the first time you ask what hamburgers are made of, and someone tells you it's cows, and you cry because you love the cows on your uncle's ranch, but you also love hamburgers so much that you can't stop eating them. Didn't you do that when you were a kid? Oh… well, neither did I. But you know what I mean, right? You're so little and you cry because the cows had to die, and your aunt tells you, "For Chrissake, Johnny, they don't have much of a life anyway. Now finish your burger." Eventually you stop crying because you realize for the first time that death is a part of life, and when it comes to cows, well, they're delicious enough that you can accept it.

It gets a lot bigger the longer you live. Pretty soon you figure out that people die, too, and sometimes they're people you love. Maybe it happens when your aunt gets diabetes and you can't spend your summers at the ranch anymore because you have to stay with her and make sure she's taking her insulin. Maybe it happens when your friend's dad drinks so much bready aftershave that his liver stops working. Eventually you come to accept that people get sick and die. That's just the way it is.

And when you become a fireman, it _really_ gets personal.

We all know that the day may come when we have to give our own lives to save someone else's—you come to terms with it even though it scares you at first, because that's just the way it has to be. And as much as you try to prepare yourself for it, you know that it could happen in a matter of seconds.

One moment you're sitting in the kitchen, Roy's watching you play cat's cradle with Mike, Chet's spilling soda on the floor and Marco's yelling, " _no seas marrano_ , Chester!" because he just finished mopping, and the next moment the tones sound and you're running out to a four-alarm structure fire. You always know deep down inside that this could very well be the day that you're running to your own death.

And you go anyway. Because there's a day, and I can't remember exactly when mine was, during training when it occurs to you how high the statistics are that you'll die because of this job. Even if you don't burn to death in a fire, maybe you'll waste away with emphysema from eating so much smoke. Either way, you figure out that the only sure thing about life is that it will end. And when you figure that out, you think at first that there's no way you'll be able to run into a burning building, but you know as well as I do that it really makes you braver. Because at that moment, you realize life is so precious, you'd give your own so that other people have a chance to realize it, too.

It's not all about death, though. You learn plenty of other things along the way, too. Like everything I told you earlier about being an Indian? That has to do with a lot of it. Like the day you figure out that you're never going to get anywhere in life unless you leave the rez. It's so hard to accept that, because you love your aunt even though she never remembers to take her insulin, and you love your friend even though you catch him one day drinking cough syrup at 14 just like his dad. But eventually you just have to deal with the fact that the life you want can't be etched out on treaty land.

And as soon as you do leave, it occurs to you that it's the white man's fault that the people you love so much live like scum, and yet you're going to go try an' live like one anyway. You feel like you're turning your back on your own people, especially if you're only half-blooded and you pass for white almost as often as your red-headed squad partner. But you come to terms with it because you've gotta make a life for yourself even if you never really fit into a white world.

And you can't hate it. You can't hate people for being white. When you first move away, you find yourself snapping at every blonde hippie for wearing a feathered headband and moccasins, every little blue-eyed kid for doing a war yell when he's playing Cowboys and Indians. But soon you figure out that getting mad at them isn't worth it, because they'll never really understand. That's why, for instance, the other night when I asked Chet to borrow a blanket and he said, "I don't know, Johnny, I've been pretty sick. Are you _sure_ you want to use my blanket?" I didn't say a damn thing. Not a damn thing.

Of course, the CPR dummy in his trunk told him how I felt about it. But that was really in return for the plastic cock-a-roach he tied to the door of my locker. Do you know that Roy thought it was funny? I bet he wouldn't have laughed so hard if it was in _his_ locker.

I know, I know, you want to hear about Roy and me. I'm getting there. The point I'm trying to make right now is that things happen and you have to accept them, because it makes life easier in the end.

But there are other times when the things you accepted change after all.

The night that Roy was drunk he'd given me the green light, but like he'd done to me so long ago, I'd slammed on the breaks. And as much as I hated that I'd turned down what I believed to be my only chance with him, it didn't take me long to accept the fact that it was better this way.

I took a shower. A cold shower. It does the trick, but it's a terrible feeling. It helped me feel a little better to sneak back out to the den to find that Roy had fallen asleep at last. I guess what they say about drinking and impotency is true after all.

Seeing him slumped over on the couch when I came back out finally drove the point home. He'd be plenty embarrassed the next morning, but at least I hadn't been the one to embarrass him. I brought out one of my own pillows for him and I laid him down so he'd be comfortable, and I left him there so that he could wake up and sort everything out on his own terms. I didn't even kiss him on the forehead or anything creepy like that. Well, okay, I did brush his hair out of his face so I could look at him… but it was just to make sure he was sleeping alright.

I managed to sleep pretty well that night, too. Sure, I was still pretty shook up, but that didn't matter. I sleep fine at the station, but not like I do at home. Do you notice that, too? It's like your body knows there's no chance that the tones will sound at three in the morning, so it lets itself completely relax.

So I slept well and I stumbled back out to the den in the morning to find that Roy was still there on my couch. Why wouldn't he be? He must've woken up already, because he had the pillow pulled over his face and he grumbled and told me to go away when I touched his arm.

I said, "You wanna go over to Chet's and pick up your car?"

He said, " _No_ ," and rolled over trying to get away from me. But he let me peel back the pillow, and he only glared at me a little when I asked him if he wanted coffee, tea, or me.

"Coffee," he grunted. "Scald the headache."

So I made him some coffee and helped him sit up to drink it. He held his head and didn't say anything for a long time. It felt pretty weird to just sit with him like that, especially when he finally squinted at me and said, "Johnny, I gotta ask… what happened last night?"

"You don't remember?" I asked.

He said, "I remember. I was just hoping my memory was wrong." He finished his coffee and I asked him if he wanted more, but he told me, "Nah, no more. I'm gonna take a leak and then I want you to drive me to Chet's." And then as he got up to stumble off to the bathroom, he added, "And then I can spend the rest of my holiday in an empty house and think about all my mistakes."

I started to go get dressed after that, but the more I thought about what he'd just said, the more I got to thinking about everything else he'd said last night. He hadn't bothered to tell Joanne he had the days off. Why would he do that? It would've been weird enough, but the fact that he'd also went and gotten himself drunker than I'd ever seen him made it that much stranger. Maybe it was just a hunch, but I figured something funny was going on.

Still squinting and muttering about his head, he followed me out to the truck and let me drive him back to Chet's. But that's not where I went. Instead, I headed to this little diner by my apartment.

When he realized where we were, he said, " _Now_ what are you doing?"

"Let's get breakfast," I told him. "Do you really have the energy to face Chet right now anyway?"

He couldn't argue with that so he went in with me and sat across from me at a booth.

The girl who waited on us took one look at him and said, "Wild night, huh? No offense, but you look like you slept on someone's couch."

"Yeah?" he said. "I _feel_ like I slept in a gutter." After we ordered, he didn't say anything else until our food showed up. When it did, he dug into his hash browns and said, "I suppose I owe you an apology for last night."

"Nah," I said. I dumped Tapatio all over my plate and added, "You didn't really do anything except slobber all over my pillowcase. And my date. And me."

He blushed, but said, "Why don't you just drink that stuff?"

"Did you want some?" I asked, holding the bottle out to him.

He shook his head and then said, "Well, even if you won't accept it, I wanna say I'm sorry. And also, thanks."

"For what?" I asked.

"For…" he went at his eggs so he wouldn't have to look at me, and he asked, "Johnny, do you think I'm a good person?"

"Of course I do," I told him.

"But do you think that good people do bad things?"

"Sometimes," I said. "That doesn't mean they're not good people, though."

He nodded and then said softly, "I tried to set it up just perfectly, you know. I told Jo I was working so she'd be out of the way. I didn't count on you bringing a date. But I scared her off pretty quick, didn't I?"

When I started to catch on to what he was saying, I kept my mouth shut and let him finish. Well, not shut, because the bacon tasted pretty good that morning, but you know what I mean.

He said, "I thought… if I let you have your way with me, you'd get it out of your system and you wouldn't feel so bad about the whole thing. I didn't think it mattered that much to you, but I knew it must have really been bothering you if you were thinking about it on a run. So I figured if I got myself really drunk I could let you do what you wanted and I wouldn't remember. But I guess I wasn't drunk enough because I remember everything. You were so patient with me even though I'd dragged you away from the party and embarrassed you in front of your date. You treated me so well after I'd hurt you so bad. But you know, I _was_ drunk enough that I couldn't ignore the way it felt to know you cared about me so much. I couldn't ignore the way I feel about you." He'd abandoned his food as he spoke, and he paused to pour some salsa on his hash browns. When nothing came out of the bottle, he growled, " _Dammit_ , Johnny," and I thought he was gonna get on my case for using it all, but instead he said, "Why did you walk away?

Everything he'd told me was still sinking in. It was hard to think of a reasonable response, but finally I tried, "I wasn't about to take advantage of you, Roy."

He shuddered and looked at me warily. "It wouldn't have been like that," he said. "It would've been consensual."

"Not really," I argued. "Not if you were doing it just so I'd leave you alone."

He sighed and stared at the empty salsa bottle. He said, "Well, that's what I meant when I said thanks." When I shook my head at him he went on. "Because I'd like to be with you, but I'd rather it be when I can actually appreciate it."

At first, I didn't even realize what he said. I mean, I was still trying to figure out all that other stuff, and I was also pretty interested in mopping up my egg yolks with my toast.

"Johnny?" he said. "Do you even care about that anymore? Would you even _want_ to be with me now?"

I said, "Look, here comes the waitress, you better ask her for some more Tapatio."

He looked at me but didn't say anything until the waitress stopped at our table.

"How ya doin'?" she asked him. "Feeling any better?"

"I'm not sure yet," he said. "I'm waiting on an answer from this guy."

"Can we get some more of this?" I asked, pointing to the bottle in Roy's hand. "One bottle wasn't en…"

 _That's_ when it sank in. That's when it occurred to me exactly what it was Roy needed an answer to.

He wanted to be with me. He had feelings for me. And now he wanted to know that I still wanted to be with him.

I said, "Yes."

"Yes what?" the waitress asked.

"That's his answer," I said. "Yes."

She rolled her eyes but laughed, and she asked Roy, "Well, _now_ how do you feel?"

At long last, the dimply smile returned. Roy looked me in the eye and gave me that gap-toothed grin. He handed the empty bottle to the waitress and said, "Fantastic."

* * *

If this were just some dumb story I made up to entertain you, it might end right about here, with Roy and I rushing off to the diner's restroom so we could finally quench our thirsts for each other. But that would involve a lot of living happily ever after and you know that's not a part of anyone's relationship. Besides, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that you've never slept with another man? Yeah, well, gay sex after downing a plate of Tapatio and eggs isn't exactly a great idea.

Well, the story is true, but the names have _not_ been changed to protect the innocent, however innocent as we may be. I guess I'm just trying to let you know how it happened because I want you to know how it really is between me and Roy.

After we had breakfast that morning, I went to drop Roy off at Chet's. It was a weird kind of quiet between us, because we were so thrilled with each other that we didn't have anything pressing to discuss.

But I hate silence, so after a while I said, "If Chet hadn't asked me to drive you home, how were you planning on getting yourself alone with me?"

"I knew Chet was gonna ask you no matter what," Roy insisted. "Chet's a lot of things, but he's not stupid enough to let his friends drive drunk."

"Chet's your friend?" I asked him.

"Isn't he yours?" he replied.

It's a difficult question to answer. I suppose after everything else I've told you, it's not gonna kill me to admit that I don't hate him, but I can't exactly say I want to be friends with someone who puts water bombs over every door I walk through and in every cabinet I open. "The Phantom" only targets me, you know. It's like he has some sort of fixation on me. Roy told me once that it's because Chet's trying to impress me because he really does want to be my friend, but if that's the case, he needs to rethink what he's doing.

Chet just isn't very good with people. I mean, for everything that's wrong with him, I'll say without the slightest bit of sarcasm that as a fireman, I'd trust Chet with my life. I guess that's not really saying much, because I'd also trust those guys from C-shift with my life. The point I'm trying to make is, if Chet could talk to people as well as he can put out fires, maybe he wouldn't have to try so hard to make friends.

But I guess Chet is my friend. And if you need some more witnesses or whatever, I think you should talk to him, and I'll tell you why.

Do you remember that time he dropped a dumbbell on his head and we had to rush him to Rampart because he had a concussion? Well, when we were hanging around the hospital after they'd treated him I thought I'd go needle him a bit for doing something so stupid.

When he saw me walk into his room, he put down the ice pack he'd been holding on his head and said, "Great, did Brackett send you in here to pick on me, too?"

"No," I said. But then I felt stupid all of a sudden for coming to visit him so I said, "Cap made me come see you."

"Yeah, right," Chet said.

"Okay, you're right," I said. " _Roy_ made me come see you."

"That I believe," he said, wincing and replacing the ice pack. "You know what Brackett told me?"

"You dented the dumbbell?" I guessed.

He rolled his eyes. "Very original, Gage, do you really think Mike and Marco didn't already ask me that? No, he said my head's gonna be fine but he's concerned that I'm putting on weight again."

I wasn't sure what to say, so I muttered, "That's not good."

"Well, what am I supposed to do? Marco's been making such great stuff lately. I can't always count on you doing the cooking."

"Don't eat so much," I suggested.

He grumbled at me. "I don't eat any more than anybody else," he said. "And don't give me any of that stuff about getting enough exercise. I'm a fireman, Gage, I get _plenty_ of exercise."

"Yeah," I said. I wasn't sure what he wanted me to tell him, if anything.

He continued, "Guys like you, Johnny, you don't know what it's like. You could eat a gallon of butter every day with a spoon, and you wouldn't gain weight."

Finally, I tried, "You're not even fat, Chet. Brackett's just giving you a hard time. He probably wants _me_ to lose weight."

"Yeah, I know," Chet sighed. "I'm just being overly sensitive about this, right?"

"A little," I said.

"Well, like I said. You don't know what it's like." He continued to stare at his ice pack and said, "You know, when I was in high school, the kids used to call me Chunky Chester."

"Children are such little angels," I said. "It's not any worse than Scrawny Johnny."

"Nobody called you that," Chet said, rolling his eyes. "I bet you had a hundred friends and just as many girlfriends."

I decided not to rub it in by saying that I also had some boyfriends, and instead said, "I got made fun of, too. You tease me for being half Indian, but just what half of me do you think I got teased for at the rez school?"

Chet sighed and I could tell he was thinking really hard. "But you had _some_ friends, didn't you?" he said. "I didn't have anyone except for the Phantom."

I knew what he meant. He didn't have to explain it. The Phantom was his imaginary friend. Is, maybe. I don't know sometimes. I don't think anyone knows except Chet.

I said, "I don't think about high school all that much anymore. You have to move on, Chet."

"How am I supposed to move on when people like Brackett are constantly reminding me about everything that's wrong with me?" he scowled at me and touched the bump on his head. When it hurt, he stuck the ice pack back on it and said, "I don't know why I'm telling _you_ all this. You can't possibly see from my point of view. You're a good-looking guy. If you wanted, you could have any chick in Los Angeles."

I have to admit, it was funny to hear him say it, but in a cynical kind of way. This was still way before Roy and I got together, so I was _really_ upset about the whole thing. And poor Chet was jealous because I had nurses after me, when all the time it was really a paramedic who I wanted to be with.

All at once, I was thinking about Roy again, so in an attempt to get away from Chet I said, "You gotta be confident."

"How?" he demanded.

I said, "Confidence is something you have to make for yourself. Look at it like this—you're funny, you're… clever," I couldn't quite bring myself to say _smart_ , "and most importantly, you're a fireman. Women dig firemen."

"Not as much as they dig paramedics," he said. "Especially cute little Indian paramedics."

Right about then, I was feeling so bad about Roy, and he was feeling so bad about himself I guess, and I didn't know what else to say, so I told him, "It doesn't matter how handsome you are, Chet! Take it from me, good looks aren't worth anything if you're in love with a guy and he doesn't love you back." And right then, I messed up and let it out. Of all the people in the _whole world..._ I had to go and tell Chet Kelly.

"You too, huh?" Chet shook his head. "Which one? The short one with dark hair or the redhead?"

Well, you can imagine what I thought right about then. Chet couldn't _really_ be saying what I thought he was saying.

And he wasn't.

"Cuz if you're into the redhead, that's fine," he said. "It's the little dark-haired nurse I like."

"Ohhhh, right," I said. "Don't worry, Chet, she's all yours."

"Well, if I can just get up the nerve to talk to…" just then, he stopped and looked at me like he'd finally figured out what he'd heard. "Gage, did you say a _guy_?"

"Ah… in regard to what?" I asked, hoping I could weasel my way out of it.

A smile spread across his face. "You're a double-dipper, huh? Two minorities in one? Too bad you're not left-handed. Then you'd be 3-for-3."

I guess I should've been a little more upset that I'd just given him yet another thing to bother me about, but I don't mind being teased about it. I'd rather be teased than hated.

So I said, "Alright, Chet. Get your kicks now, because it doesn't leave his room."

He looked at me and stopped smiling. "You can trust me, Johnny," he said. And I do. As much as I want to punch him right across the mustache sometimes, I do trust him. Especially because a moment later, he added, "Just don't say anything to Mike or Marco about Chunky Chester, okay?"

So I guess I can understand why Roy puts up with the guy. I don't think he feels sorry for him or anything, but he realizes that part of the reason for all his stupid antics is that he's just like the rest of us, only a little different. He has his own perspective that nobody else has. Kinda like what I told you about me. When someone absent-mindedly asks him if he wants another piece of cake, when the dry cleaner asks him if he wants his pants let out a bit more, that sorta thing, it's all going through a little filter like the one I told you I have. It's way different, I know, but I guess what I'm trying to say is, Chet's a good guy and you should talk to him if my story isn't enough to convince you that Roy's okay, too.

I still think he deserves a CPR dummy in his trunk for laughing at that Robert Wagner movie, though. Come on, even you have to admit, that was _really_ weird. Even weirder than the Phantom.

Anyway, when we got to Chet's place, Roy's car was still parked right out front.

Roy said, "Well, I guess I'll go in and tell him thanks."

"I'll go in with you," I said.

"You don't have to," Roy said. "I can handle Chet on my own."

I didn't want to see him go. I mean, think about it. After all that stuff he'd told me over breakfast, I kinda wanted to spend some more time with him. Like, the rest of my life.

I said, "What do you want to do? Uh, before we have to go back to work tomorrow?"

"I could really stand to go home," he told me. "I need a shower. Not to mention a shave."

There's that shaving thing again. White guys have to worry about it all the time, but me, I can go days without thinking about it. Well, more like a week… oh, okay, _fine_. You remember that time everyone wanted to see who could grow a beard the fastest, and I made a big fuss about how it's against department regulations for firemen to go around looking like hobos? Yeah, well, I don't really care about regulations; it's just that I knew everyone would look like Santa Claus by the time I got something like the beginning of a fu manchu.

And Roy was looking pretty rough that morning, so I told him, "Alright, but I'd like to see you again today."

"Of course," Roy said. "I like spending time with you, Johnny. I meant what I said last night. You make me happy." He touched my face, with his hand on my jaw, and then he ran his fingers up through my hair. "I also meant what I said about brushing this a little bit. Washing it now and then wouldn't hurt, either."

"Nag, nag, nag," I said. But I smiled at him and I pushed against his hand like a cat does, because it felt so fantastic to know that Roy really did have feelings for me. I wasn't even concerned about anyone seeing us. Besides, you've been to Chet's place, you know he lives out in the middle of nowhere. And well, if it was Chet who saw us, I guess he'd just know that I'd fallen for the redhead after all.

I leaned closer to Roy and I asked him, "Is this really happening to us, Roy?"

"I don't know," he said, "But I sure hope it is." His smile was so big and sweet, in all his dimpled, gap-toothed, pale-skinned glory, that I grabbed onto the steering wheel and thrashed around, whooping and hollering because I just couldn't contain how happy I was at that moment. After a while, Chet's front door opened.

He poked his head out and yelled, "Darn it, Gage, go do a war yell in front of someone else's house."

What he didn't know was that it was actually a love yell.

When I got home, I decided to give my aunt a call and tell her about it. You can talk to her, too, if you need to. She'd been the only person I'd spent much time seriously talking to about this and I figured she deserved to know the outcome. That, and I like to keep up on her and make sure she's taking her insulin.

"You must not have a date today," she told me on the phone when I asked her what her glucose numbers had been like lately. "You never pester your old aunt when you have a date."

"I have a date," I told her. "Actually, it's even better than that."

"A girl or a boy?" she asked me. She's always asked me that, you know. It never seemed to faze her when I started bringing home boyfriends in high school, and I'd never really considered that it would be something she'd be fazed by.

"A _man_ ," I told her. "You'll never guess who."

"You're so excited," she said. "He must be pretty special."

"You bet he's special. It's Roy!" it was all I could do not to shout it into the phone.

"Who's Roy?" she asked.

"You know, Roy," I said. "The guy I've been telling you about for so long. My squad partner?"

"Oh," she said. "So he finally came around, huh? This means you won't be calling me in the middle of the night to cry about it anymore, then?"

Just for the record, I never _cried_ about Roy. Maybe she thought I did sometimes when I talked to her about it, but, uh, I was probably just breathing heavy or something. Ha, yeah right. Me, crying?

She asked me, "So what's he look like?"

"He's in that picture I sent you from the camping trip I took with the guys from my shift," I said.

I heard her shuffle around looking for it and then she said, "Which one is he?"

"The _handsome_ one!" I gushed.

She paused and then said, "Could you be a little more specific?"

I sighed and said, "The redhead, standing by me with his hand on my shoulder."

" _Him_?" she tsked and said, "If you had to pick one of the white ones, you should've gone for the little chubby one. With the mustache."

"Very funny," I said, sincerely hoping that she really was kidding. "And just what's wrong with Roy?"

"Uh-uh, I don't want to hurt your feelings," she said.

"Tell me," I said. "I wanna know what you think of him."

"Really?" she laughed. "Okay… how does he keep his helmet strapped on under that weak chin of his?"

"Roy doesn't have a weak chin," I said. "It's just… gentle."

"Gentle chin?" she laughed and laughed, and the thing is, I hadn't meant it as a joke. Finally, she calmed down and said, "You're just blind to his flaws."

"I love his flaws," I told her. "I love him."

And it went on like that for a while. She really thinks it's funny that I'm in love with a white guy, you know. But I know that deep down inside, she's happy for me. She won't come out and say it directly, but teasing me about it is her way of saying that she's glad about it. You ought to hear her go on about me being a fireman. When I first told her I was joining the department, she said, "If you're gonna live out one of your childhood fantasies, just be a cowboy."

"Cowboys don't save lives," I told her.

"You look better in a white Stetson than a red helmet," she said.

"The county helmets are black," I told her.

She said, "You're too crazy to drive an engine."

"I'm gonna be in a rescue squad," I told her. "It's smaller. More like a truck."

"Okay, Johnny," she said after a while. "Just don't go around falling for all those other handsome firemen."

* * *

And now the story is coming to an end, and no love story is complete without a sex scene. I don't know if you want to hear this part, but I'd like to tell you because I think it's important. If you hear this part, then maybe you'll believe me when I say that what you saw wasn't what you think it was.

You might guess, if you were to judge us superficially, that Roy would usually be the one on top since he's a bigger guy than me. But you might also consider levels of experience; Roy had only slept with women before me – woman, I should say, Joanne was his first and only—so I'd be the more experienced one by a long shot.

Well, the size thing was certainly something to consider. I guess we did look pretty funny that first time, with his big ol' legs wrapped around my skinny chest. But there was no question about experience. Maybe with other guys there would've been, but you have to understand, it's not like Roy doesn't know anything about the human body. After all, he had his paramedic training before I even joined the program.

Actually, our issue wasn't really that we couldn't decide who would be the first to bend over, it was what happened afterward. Our discussion. You see, the issue was that even though Roy had accepted his feelings for me, it didn't change the fact that he still had a marriage and a family to consider.

That was why Roy had held out at first. I understand why he did, I mean, it's like I told you before. I wasn't sure about flirting with a married man, and Roy wasn't sure about hurting his family. I guess I kinda admire him for that, for trying to resist me at first because it was the right thing to do. I don't want you to think Roy's a bad guy because he gave up trying to fight. If anything, _I'm_ the bad guy for being some kind of skinny Indian jezebel. Roy gave in because I was going around being so uptight about it that I was breakin' his little heart. He was only trying to look out for me.

But I guess even that doesn't excuse infidelity, does it? I guess if you were to ask Joanne, she wouldn't think her husband was doing the right thing by lying to her about his time off so he could spend it with his squad partner instead of her. If you were to ask his kids, they probably wouldn't be proud of their dad because he'd rather get drunk and try to hook up with his best friend than spend a holiday with them.

And Roy knew that. I know he did. He didn't need to tell me that when he came over that afternoon after he'd confessed to me. I could see it in his eyes when he climbed up the stairs, even though he was smiling at me.

"You know, these seem a lot less steep when you're not completely plastered," he said.

"The couch probably doesn't seem so comfortable, though," I replied, and when he came in and I closed the door and looked at him, I could see that he was thinking really hard about something. It must've been from walking around in that empty house of his. When he was showering and shaving and all those things, he must've been thinking, "What if something happens and Jo tries to call me at the station because she thinks I'm there? How am I gonna explain it if she finds out? Would she be more upset to know I'm having an affair, or to know I'm cheating on her with a man—with _Johnny Gage_?"

I could just feel that sort of thing going through his mind right about then. I thought I should ask him about it, but I wouldn't know what to say. It'd be like Chet telling me about getting picked on in school. I could sympathize, but what kind of advice was I supposed to give?

I could see all that guilt and concern in his eyes and it hurt me that he felt so bad. He'd tried to make me happy the night before, and I wanted to do that for him, too. So as we sat there on my couch, I looked at him and I said, "Roy, I still can't get over it. It's still so hard to believe that I could be so lucky."

"Yeah," he sighed and smiled kinda thoughtfully. "It's so much better to finally get it off my chest. I guess we still have a long way to go, or I do at least. But I'm glad you can forgive me for turning you away at first."

"Nah, I understand," I told him. I hoped that would be enough for him to get the message. I still hope he knows that I don't resent him at all for saying no the first time.

All of a sudden, he got real quiet, and I was pretty sure he was thinking about Jo and the kids again. I didn't know what else to do, so I scooted closer to him and looked him in the eyes. It was the first time that I'd really studied them like that. I'd looked him in the eye before, but never like this. I could see that he was so worried and so anxious, but the longer I stared back at him, his concern seemed to go away a little bit, even if it was just for a little while.

He said, "Johnny, I don't think I made it clear enough this morning just how strongly I feel about you." It felt so good to hear him say it, even though it was just the beginning of what he wanted to say. But I almost didn't want to hear the rest of it because it made me so happy I couldn't bear it.

So instead I said, "Are we gonna spend the whole afternoon talking, or what?"

"Hey, let's take it slow," he said, smiling. But it faded again and then he said, "Johnny…" When he blushed and couldn't go on, I touched his face and smiled at him, and then I kissed him again.

I felt like I did back at Chet's. It made me want to thrash around and yell, it made my toes curl in my boots, and it made me want to hold Roy as tight as I could and tell him how much I loved him. I was a little shy about the last part, but when he wrapped his arms all the way around me and ran his hands down my back so slowly he could've been counting my ribs, I was almost ready to tell him everything. But I didn't say much of anything for a while, because out of all the people I've kissed in my whole life, I'd never been so overcome as when Roy parted his lips and kissed me as hard as he did right then. It made my guts tie up in knots the way he pinched my lip between our teeth and held onto a handful of my hair. I could barely stand to part with him long enough to breathe—it almost seemed worth it to suffocate to death because it felt so good. And the best part of the whole thing was knowing that the next day, when I sat beside him in the squad, I could look at him for the first time in so long without a broken heart.

That first time, I could tell that he was nervous about it, probably because he'd never been with another man before. I was kinda nervous, too, but mostly because I wanted to make sure his first time was good enough to make him come back for more. Cuz now that he was mine for the taking…

Roy has a wonderful body. You've probably seen him, or most of him at least, in the showers at one time or another. He's got those big, strong shoulders and thick chest that tapers into narrow hips—his body is such a contrast to mine. And that's not including the hair. I'm sure you're getting sick of hearing about hair all the time, but I'm gonna say it again: the first time I had Roy's naked chest pressed against mine, I remember gazing between our bodies, watching the way all that coarse brown hair was crushed against my own bare skin. His body hair is brown, in case you haven't noticed. I guess some redheads are just like that. Blondes, too. Just one more reason why white people can't be trusted—you can't even be sure what color their body hair is supposed be unless you see 'em completely naked.

Another thing about Roy is his hands. My hands aren't exactly small, but his just seem to be able to hold onto my waist like none other. And like mine, they've been burned and cut up dozens of times, and mended up again and again. His hands have just the right variety of experience for me. I once heard some guy say, "Who can please a man like a man?" and I'd like to add something to that: who can please a fireman-paramedic like a fireman-paramedic?

And yes, it is different for us. Well, probably just for me, I haven't asked Roy about it, but I'm pretty sure it's another one of those personal perspective things. When I got my training, it became a whole different experience. It changed. It went from _making love_ to _having sex_ , and it's never really gone back. I mean, it doesn't make it any less good once you know the official medical term for every body part and everything that comes out of it, but I definitely noticed that it was different. I bet it's pretty bad for actual doctors, though. They never call anything by its real name. No wonder Dixie dumped Brackett. Wouldn't you, after hearing him say, "Hey Dix, wanna put your phalanges on my frenulum again?"

Something else that changed was that I stopped being squeamish about anything like that. In the field, you have to develop an iron stomach. I don't want to be indelicate, so I'll put it like this: when it comes to body fluids, you name it, I've had it on me at some point. You just get used to strangers making a mess all over you, so you're not really bothered by it when it's the person you love. Well, I guess it does depend on what's happening, really. Most of the time on a run it's someone bleeding all over me, and I guarantee that I'd be bothered if Roy had a laceration and was bleeding, but I think you know what I mean.

Anyway, the first time we were together, we could hardly sit with each other we were anticipating it so much. Although personally, I like it to be a little more spontaneous. It's not something that should be regimented. Roy's not like that per se, but he is a lot mellower about it than I am. That afternoon, I would've been fine to tear his clothes off and have him on the living room floor, but it was Roy who kept it slow and calm, who held my hand and looked me in the eyes when I stood from the couch and led him to my bedroom. We both knew what was gonna happen, but I guess our combined nervousness and Roy's leisurely attitude kept us from being frantic.

He asked me one last time, "Are you sure you still want to be with me?"

"I never stopped wanting you, Roy," I told him, and again I wanted to say how much I loved him but I was afraid something so heavy would ruin the mood.

When we got to the bedroom, we undressed and I turned down the sheets. Taking the lead, I sprawled myself on the bed. He watched me and I couldn't tell if his hesitation was from anxiety or what, but I could see well enough once he was naked that he couldn't have been _that_ anxious. So I told him to join me and he did. We looked at each other as he laid down, and then when he put his arms around me and pulled me to him, all I could think about for a few moments was those brown curls flattening against my chest.

I took him first. That's how it finally ended up that first time. I like having Roy in me, and like I said earlier, it probably looks a lot less funny that way, but anything with him is perfect for me.

He told me, "You know what you're doing. I don't want to make a mistake and hurt you."

"You won't hurt me," I promised him. "Well, not anymore than I'll hurt you."

He laughed. "I can handle you. Won't even feel you slip in."

Ha, yeah, with Roy and me, it's none of that "Yours is bigger. No, yours is bigger" stuff. You know how we are. We've argued about it since then, but not recently since we got our hands on a tape measure.

…Roy is.

Not by much, though, okay? I mean, maybe a quarter of an inch in length on a good day. Not that it bothers me. I don't need to remind you of the thing about boat size, motion of the ocean, that sort of thing. I'm sure you know as well as I do that it's not the length of your ladder truck, it's the way you make that Snorkel sway. Came up with that one myself.

I told Roy, "If you weren't gonna feel anything, why bother?"

"Well, what is there to feel?" he asked me. "There's nothing up there."

"Sure there is," I told him. "Think about it."

He considered it for a few moments and then asked, "Really? Glands don't have any feeling, do they?"

"Does _this_ have any feeling?" I asked him, and I kissed him hard on the throat under his chin. It's uh, well, there's a gland there, too. Thyroid. Do you really want an anatomy lesson? You can feel it if you touch it, and if it's swollen I suggest you check yourself in over at Rampart. You can feel that other gland, too, but don't try it while I'm here. And don't try to feel any of your other glands, because as far as I know it's pretty difficult to tickle your own pancreas.

I guess talking about glands isn't exactly romantic, but that's the way it went. I had Roy convinced by the time I'd bit down on his neck and started to give him a bruise.

He groaned, "Okay, show me, then."

So I hung over the side of my bed and searched around through all the dirty clothes and things I'd kicked under there for a jar of petroleum jelly that I was also pretty sure I'd left down there. Roy rolled over and held me by the waist and kissed my back while I looked, right on the spine. It sure made it hard to concentrate when he did that, let me tell you. When I finally found it I told him to lie still and let me do what I had to do.

By this point it was getting obvious that he really was nervous. He looked at me and said, "You gotta clean under that bed."

I crouched between his knees and said, "Hold still."

I tried to be gentle with him, and he is a pretty tough guy, but when I slipped my fingers in, he groaned and shuddered like I'd never seen him do before. I guess I'd proved to him after all that there _is_ something to feel up there. And then he looked down at me before I was really sure he was ready, but I couldn't ignore the way he said my name.

He said, "Oh, _Johnny_." Just like that. I can be dead asleep, but as soon as he says my name like that, I'm ready to go.

It was probably a strange sight to see, like I said. Roy and I are such different kinds of people, physically speaking. We're pretty darn attracted to each other, but we don't have that sort of "sync" that other people seem to—he moves in an entirely different way than me.

The way he's built, everything he does reflects his size and shape. Every movement is deliberate and has a lot of force behind it. It's like how Big Red takes so much more momentum to reach the same speed as the squad. When there's that much weight packed into such a hefty shape, there's never any energy to spare. That's what Roy's like. If he lays on his back for me, his whole body has to work to support the awkward shift of weight. When he's on his knees, filling me, every thrust takes a big kinetic build-up. His breath is forced out in a hard "oof" when he takes me, and he always has to give a few thrusts even when he's done because he finishes like a train: slowly, taking just as much energy to stop all that weight as it took to get it going.

But me, I'm different. I use just as much energy as Roy, but there's so much less muscle and bone to support, so it pushes me a lot further, and a lot faster. When I spent my summers on my uncle's ranch as a kid, I'd run and run all over the place, and my cousins would try to chase me like a pack of dogs after a little rabbit. But I could run circles around them and they'd never catch me. It's like that with Roy. When he's on top, I'm moving twice as much as him, touching him, touching myself, arching my spine, pushing back against him, throwing back my head and shoulders, crying out his name. And on the rare occasions when I'm on top, I'm going so fast and so hard, burning up all that energy at once, and when I finish, I collapse onto Roy's chest and lay there, nearly blind and sputtering like an idiot because I'm so exhausted.

Our first time proved just what a weird couple we make. Come to think of it, we probably should've done it different. It would've been a lot easier if he didn't have to face me, but that's how it went. His knees were drawn up right under my armpits, his ankles were crossed behind my chest, squeezing the breath right out of me, and his hands were wrapped all the way around my biceps, so hard that his fingers left bruises. We are kinda rough on each other, I guess, but like I told you, it really takes a lot out of us to make it work.

But let me tell you, we _always_ make it work.

Even that first time before we had it perfected. He had to work so hard to keep his legs around me, and I had to work so hard to hold up that weight, it was all we could do not to topple over like an unbalanced Snorkel truck. I was sure we were both gonna snap our spines and the guys from C-shift would have to come out there and have a hell of a time figuring out how to get us onto the backboards. But Roy was so tight and the way his head rolled back and he moaned my name was so perfect, it was definitely worth a hernia.

Am I being too vivid for you? Hey, you said you wanted to hear about what goes on between me and Roy, and I'm telling it like it is. Surely you understand that you remember every detail of the first time with someone you love. If I close my eyes and think about it, I can still remember everything with all five senses. I can taste Roy's mouth against mine, smell his sweat and his arousal, watch that hairy chest of his rising and falling with labored breaths, hear him growling my name over and over, and feel him pulling and tightening around me as we both get closer and closer.

And that's how it happened.

When it was all over, and I'd regained enough strength to think again, Roy pointed out that both of us were covered in contusions. Those were his exact words, "covered in contusions," as if we were on the biocom telling Rampart about it. I asked him if we should start each other on an IV of normal saline, and he said the last thing he wanted to think about after great sex was administering an IV. Then he went on to say that talking about IVs was possibly less sexy than our discussion about glands.

"I'm not very good at pillow talk," I told him.

"I noticed," he said.

I said, "You're the one who started going on about contusions."

"Why don't you let me sleep for a few minutes," he yawned. "And then we can talk even more about contusions. Specifically, the ones I'm gonna knock upside your head if you don't let me sleep."

And then I had to go and mess it all up. I buried my face against his shoulder and I said, "Do you talk to your wife like that?" I didn't even consider what I was saying until it was too late.

"My wife?" he repeated. "Oh, yeah. My wife. Thanks for reminding me about her."

I thought about it for a while, and then I said, "I don't think you ever forgot about her, Roy." I wasn't arguing with him. I don't want you to think we we'd argue that soon afterward. I just knew that Roy hadn't forgotten about Joanne, at least not for very long. It's like I told you way back at the beginning of this story, about how often I forget I'm an Indian. Yeah, obviously I'm not thinking, "I'm an Indian!" right in the middle of having sex with Roy, but it's still floating around _somewhere_ in my mind.

Roy said, "You're right. I want to be with you, but I can't stop thinking about how wrong it is."

"Do you regret it?" I asked him. "Do you wish we hadn't done it?"

"No, not at all," he said. "I'm glad it happened." Then after a few moments, he added, "My butt sure is sore, though."

That was the kind of thing we usually would've laughed about, but neither of us was really in a laughing mood. All I could think about was the way he seemed to be looking past me even when he met my eyes. It hurt to see him like that, almost as much as it hurt way back when we'd had that conversation in the squad. It hurt because I knew how bad he felt, and I couldn't help but wonder if it had hurt him this bad when he saw me going around being broken-hearted over him.

And I knew what I had to tell him.

"If you change your mind," I told him, "and you decide you can't be with me after all, well, I guess I should tell you that I love you while I still have the chance. So, uh, I'll say it, then. I love you, Roy."

He looked at me for a long time and didn't say anything, and then he blinked hard and looked away from me. He said, "How can you love a man who'd cheat on his wife?" his voice cracked when he said it and I could tell why he didn't want me to see his face.

I said, "I guess I like to pretend that he loves me, too."

He turned back to me and I could see how watery his eyes were. It was kinda intense to see. I mean, okay, _maybe_ I got a little weepy once talking to my aunt about it, but Roy's not that kind of guy. He kept it together pretty well, though.

He said, "Why pretend?"

"It's better than accepting that he doesn't," I told him.

He shrugged. "But what if he does?"

"That would be nice," I said.

"Well, I do," he said. When I started to shake my head, he rolled closer to me and ran his hand through my hair. He said, "I love you, Johnny."

* * *

That's the way it went. And that's the way it's been ever since.

It's been about a year since that first time, and while we've had our issues, it works out pretty well between us. Outside of work, we see each other as often as we can. He spends most of his time with his family so he doesn't stir up any suspicion, and I go around with my nurses so I don't get lonely without him. But we always find time for each other between work and the things we have to do to keep up appearances. Sometimes we go on little dates—we'll see a movie, we'll spend an afternoon down at Huntington, stuff like that. Other times, especially when we've waited a long time, we'll rush right up to my apartment and forget to leave my bedroom for a whole evening.

I know I see him every day at work, but I wish I could be with him more. If he didn't have a wife and kids, we could _always_ be together. We could share a bed every night and wake up in each other's arms every morning. But I understand that this is the way it has to be. I don't resent his family. They're just as much a part of his life as I am. He loves his kids, and while he insists that Jo is really more like a friend to him, sometimes I'm not sure if he doesn't still love her a little bit.

But it's fine with me, I guess, because I can accept and respect that he had a life before me and he still has a responsibility to that life. I'm not bitter about it. It's kinda fun sometimes to think that I'm his secret lover, and that having him come over to have dinner and sleep with me is really a kind of clandestine but romantic rendezvous. I just hope that his family won't be bitter about me, either.

You know, I've always been sure that if his family were to find out about it and it were to become an issue, at least we could still be around each other at work. Maybe that's not gonna happen now. But we do a really good job of keeping our hands off of each other while we're around everyone else. Knowing how the other feels doesn't get in the way of our jobs. I guess it might be because we've always had this tension between us, and we learned to work around it on that very first day when I stared at him in the latrine. And we've been into each other for so long, we've gotten used to that awful sinking feeling that comes when one of us has to rush into a fire, or one of us gets sick or hurt.

You can understand what I mean because we _all_ feel that way about everyone, even if we're not all romantic like me and Roy. Hell, I even feel that way about Chet—it's nerve-wracking to watch him be dragged out of a building with heat exhaustion or smoke inhalation no matter how many times he short-sheets my bunk or how many water bombs he hides in my locker. Being in love with Roy doesn't make it that much different. It doesn't make it easier, but at least it doesn't get in the way of our work.

It's like I said earlier. Sometimes you just have to come to terms with things, no matter how upsetting they are. Yeah, it makes me _really_ nervous sometimes to think that the look Roy gives me though his oxygen mask before rushing up a ladder to search for a child in a burning building could be the last glance we ever exchange, but why let it get to me when I know there's nothing I can do to change it? All I can do is enjoy the time we have together, whether it's laughing with him in the squad after getting called out because someone had an ingrown toenail, or smelling the smoke on his clothes when we steal a kiss and an embrace in the latrine after barely making it out of a fire alive.

Do you think that's what it feels like to be a fireman's wife? Because if that's the case, please don't tell Joanne about the two of us, but less for Roy's sake and more for hers. I can't imagine what it would feel like to know that after she stood by his side for so long, he'd go and cheat on her with some dumb skinny Indian. I know I mean more to Roy than that, but you know what I'm saying. And that's why it still makes me feel a little guilty to think that I'm with a married man. Like I said, all I can do is enjoy the time we have together…

The thing that I can't stress enough is that it doesn't affect our work. You _know_ that it doesn't. I mean, have you even once noticed that Roy and I are too distracted by each other to do our jobs? You haven't, have you? Me and Roy, we can handle it. Sometimes we get mad at each other, although it's mostly him getting mad at me, but we can put our emotions aside long enough to do our jobs and do them well. We don't even bother the engine crew. I know there was that one time when Roy showed up for his shift with a big ol' hickey on his neck, and I know that everybody thought it was really funny to give him a hard time about it, but you remember that it wasn't a big deal, don't you? I bet you didn't know that it wasn't Joanne who left that bite on him. It was me.

The point is, it might've been funny, but it never caused anybody one ounce of harm. And hey, if I'm making sure to wash and brush my hair because Roy likes it like that, everybody benefits, right? It doesn't hurt if I put a little more effort into making the department look good, does it? Think of it like this—Roy and I love each other, and we make each other happy. A happy paramedic does a better job than a heartbroken paramedic. The only thing about our relationship that would distract us to the point of keeping us from doing our jobs would be if there _wasn't_ a relationship.

And…

And what you saw today was just a part of that. You _know_ we were having a bad day. It started with that little kid with the sprained ankle shooting me with his cap gun because he was pretending to be a cowboy and of _course_ I was the Indian he was trying to kill. That wasn't such a big deal, it was just a really irritating way to start a day. But it didn't stop there. Do you know that Dixie called to tell us that the domestic violence victim we took in with the fractured skull and broken wrist is too scared to press charges against her husband, even though he could've killed her if we didn't show up in time? God _damn_ it, a woman shouldn't have to be afraid of fighting back against a man who continuously brutalizes her just because she made the mistake of marrying him.

Do you know what it's like to see stuff like that first hand, day after day? It's the worst part of being a paramedic. At least if someone dies in a structure fire, we can tell ourselves, "the fire was too hot, the structure was too compromised, there was no way we could've saved him." But there's no excuse for these medical emergencies we get all the damn time. There's so many lives we can't save, and nobody we can blame. The 50-year-old heart case who keeled over at his daughter's wedding. The 3-year-old who drowned in a bathtub even though her mom only left her alone for two minutes. We tried and tried, but we just couldn't do it. Maybe we were 30 seconds too late, maybe the heart case wouldn't change his diet even though his doctor told him he had clogged arteries, maybe the girl's mother left her alone for a lot longer than two minutes. Big deal. We can't blame the traffic, the fatty food or the parents. Because blame can't do anything once the patients are dead.

That's what _our_ day was like today. How was yours?

Maybe if Roy and I had known that you were there, he wouldn't have put his arms around me to keep me from punching the wall and breaking my knuckles. Maybe I wouldn't have cried out in anger and frustration and maybe he wouldn't have held me still and kissed me to calm me down and let me know I wasn't dealing with these things alone. Maybe if we would've checked out the locker room to make sure we were really alone you wouldn't have heard the commotion and caught us like that.

And... maybe you wouldn't have seen him, holding onto me while I shouted and struggled. Maybe you wouldn't have thought that he was hushing me and kissing me because he was taking advantage of me, and that I was thrashing around on the verge of tears because I was afraid.

But we didn't, and you did.

All of those things are _maybe_ s, but I can tell you one thing for certain—just look at how many horrible days we've made it through. If Roy and I didn't have each other, there would be no way we'd ever make it through a day like today. After all those runs, and now _this_? It's a good thing we have each other. And yeah, if you're curious, when this shift is over we're probably goin' up to my place and work it out between ourselves no matter the outcome. If you decide to bust us, separate us, get us kicked out of the department, we'll be there for each other. But if you don't do any of that, if you can understand and sympathize with everything I've just told you, well, I guess you could say we'll have a bit of a celebration.

Before you make up your mind, I'd like to remind you one more time that Roy is a good man. I know what it looked like, but that's not what it was. I know that's why you talked to Roy before me, and I know that's why he came out of here looking like he was just about ready to jump off a bridge. But he wasn't trying to hurt me and I'd like to think that you know he's a better man than that. He's a better man than me. _I'm_ the one who started it two years ago, and Roy really did turn me down and try to hold out because he was a hell of a lot smarter than me.

You might be getting ready to say, "Okay, Johnny, I believe you. But he's not a good man even if he wasn't trying to hurt you. Exactly how good is a married man who routinely has sex with his male squad partner despite knowing how the consequences could affect his family and his career?" I suppose that's what Roy meant when he asked me how I could possibly love him. The answer isn't really one that I can give you directly. Maybe there _is_ nothing good about Roy, except that he saves a lot of lives here and there, and often risks his own to do so.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, despite what you might think of us now that you know, don't blame Roy for this. It's my fault. If someone has to be punished, let it be me. Transfer me to a brush fire station. Kick me out of the department entirely if you have to. Just don't blame Roy. Don't tell his wife, don't let it ruin his career. He didn't get me into this, _I_ got me into this.

I always get myself into these things.

I don't know why.

It's just the kind of idiot I am.

Please understand. If you don't believe me, call my aunt, call Dixie. Bring Chet in here and ask him. Please! I promised myself I wouldn't beg you, but if that what it takes I'll beg 'till I'm hoarse. Please, Cap, you _have_ to understand.

...Really?

Thanks, Cap.

* * *

end


End file.
